Tackling Unemployment Through Entrepreneurship

Nowadays, it is common knowledge that employment creation is no longer the prerogative of government but rather, a joint effort between the public and private sectors.
Perceptive analysts, nonetheless, believe that government ought to provide the enabling environment to stimulate entrepreneurial spirit in the nation’s teeming population of the youth, which is its most productive force.
These days, it has become a commonplace to see youths roam the streets in search of employment that are simply not there. Frustrations have bred in their ranks, with many resorting to criminality in order to survive.
President Goodluck Jonathan himself acknowledges this when he said recently that, unemployment, especially among the youths, was a major challenge for his administration.
“Unemployment among our youths is one of our biggest challenges. The time has come to create jobs (and) lay a new foundation for Nigeria’s economic growth,” he said.
He explained that it was because of this challenge that in the Federal Government budgeted 50 billion naira the current fiscal year to tackle unemployment.
According to him, “the money is meant to encourage young people with creative ideas so that they can generate jobs and employ others”.
Experts, over the years, have tried to examine some of the causes of unemployment, identifying some as seeming inconsistencies in government’s fiscal policies, inadequate access to finance by entrepreneurs, besides the global economic meltdown.
“Decades of non-inclusive policies have alienated the vast majority of Nigerians, reducing the country into a steam of extreme poverty and ravaging civil and political conflicts,” said an economist, Dr Joseph Ibidapo.
He traced much of Nigeria’s current economic problems back to the historic over-dependence on oil, to the negligence of all other sectors, especially agriculture, which hitherto absolved a sizeable proportion of the nation’s workforce.
Nevertheless, economic analysts insist that a huge magnitude of businesses in Nigeria plays itself out in the informal sector of the economy, reflecting the measure of Nigerians’ inherent entrepreneurial capacities and spirits.
They point out that the percentage of unemployment has risen to such a point that some youths now engage themselves in crimes as kidnapping, armed robbery and terrorism, thus killing and maiming innocent citizens and engendering general insecurity in the society.
Moreover, they identify the major hindrance to entrepreneurial growth in the country to inadequate access to finance by budding entrepreneurs, coupled with the absence of a viable credit policy.
A case in point is Mr. Ogbonaya Peter, an agricultural engineer, who is skilled in the manufacture of cassava-peeling machines.
“I am a trained agriculturist, but unfortunately, there is no money to start up an agricultural farm or buy materials to make my brand of cassava peeling machines
“I have approached the banks for loans, but the interest they are charging and other conditions attached are not customer-friendly at all.”
Determined not to starve, however, Peter has resorted to doing menial jobs for some money to supplement stipends from family members.
Mr. Paul Johnson is another entrepreneur, who believes that with some little support from government, his business could expand to the level of employing others.
According to Peter, “let government come to our aid and assist us in making policies that will enable us access loans easily and without difficulties”.
Another problem for budding entrepreneurs, he said, was the unfriendly taxation regime in most states of the federation.
“What we pay as taxes is too high and does not make room for own development as young entrepreneurs.”
A business administrator and analyst, Mr Mohammed Aminu, said that micro finance banks were introduced in the country to assist people at the grassroots but unfortunately had not discharged their obligations satisfactorily.
Specifically, he urged President Goodluck Jonathan and his economic team to critically explore ways of advancing the economy by initiating policies that would encourage entrepreneurship in the country.
“Government should remove all the stringent conditions on borrowing and provide the enabling environment to encourage the individual and private sector operators to thrive and create more jobs.’’
According to him, “For the entrepreneurial business to thrive in Nigerian, the power sector, research system, justice system, information system and policy formulation methods must undergo reforms.
“If government fixes power and tackles insecurity, the interest rate on borrowing will automatically drop by some percentage.”
A political economist, Mr. Mustapha Abu, said that creating the right environment for the private sector to flourish was a viable way to deepen the nation’s democracy, while also curtailing youth restiveness and the attendant insecurity in the country.
Abu said that the private sector in developed economies of the world employed the bulk of nations’ workforce, warning that if the business climate continued to work against the sector’s interest in Nigeria, then unemployment would continue to rise.
He urged that more efforts needed to be made by government and the financial regulators to enable entrepreneurs have easier access to funds and credits at manageable interest rates, so that in turn, they would employ more Nigerians, especially the youths.
Only on Oct. 11, President Jonathan unveiled the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (You WiN!) Programme.
It is a collaborative project of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology and the Ministry of Youth Development, with funding support from the private sector, the World Bank and the Directorate for International Development (DFID).
Officials say that the programme primarily aims at assisting young Nigerians with entrepreneurial skills to develop their enterprises. Under it, over 3,600 youths will be financially assisted to actualize their entrepreneurial ideas and plans.
It is expected that the programme will create between 80,000 to 110,000 sustainable jobs over the next four years.
The need to create moere jobs also informed the decision of the Federal Government to break up the Ministry of Information and Communication recently.
“It is to also make sure that we focus on youth empowerment through creating a lot of jobs for the youth through ICT,” Jonathan said.
While such measures at the federal level appear salutary, observers insist that the initiatives must be replicated at state and local government levels, so as to make their effect far-reaching.
They also advocate for a change of attitude by Nigerians towards entrepreneurial development if the transformation agenda of the present administration must be effective.
There is also the fear that unless unemployment is tackled head-on by the Nigerian government, the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) target to reduce poverty substantially by 2015 may remain an illusion.
Yakubu writes for News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Nefishatu Yakubu